BOSTON — Celtics coach Doc Rivers didn’t need to look at the box score to know that, with three minutes to go in the first half of Boston’s game against the Kings here at TD Garden on Wednesday, team captain Paul Pierce was not exactly doing what he was supposed to do. Pierce is the team’s leading scorer, but in the days after the shocking revelation that came Sunday afternoon—that All-Star point guard Rajon Rondo had torn his ACL and would be out for the year—speculation held that Pierce would operate more as a point-forward. He is a good passer and, when Rondo has been out of the lineup in the past, Pierce usually sees a boost in his assist numbers.

Had Rivers glanced at the box score, he would have seen that Pierce, at that point, had taken just one field-goal attempt, and it was a miss. He knew whom to blame—those of us in the media who had touted Pierce’s passing skill. “I got on Paul at the beginning of the game because I thought he was trying to be the facilitator,” Rivers said. “He must’ve read some of your all dumb-ass articles. And then once he started moving the ball, he was great. Because he’s still our scorer. I said, ‘Paul, you’re still our scorer, by the way.’”

Boston Celtics guard Avery Bradley will pick up his ballhandling responsibilities with Rajon Rondo out for the season. (AP Photo)

Pierce went on to score a team-high 16 points on 5-for-9 shooting as the Celtics drubbed the Kings, 99-81, in their second game since the Rondo injury—and since Rivers didn’t tell his team about the injury on Sunday, their first game that they actually knew they’d be without Rondo for the year.

Rivers has been emphatic in his belief that the team didn’t need to make major (or even minor) changes to the roster in Rondo’s absence. What they need to do is much of what they showed on Wednesday—replace the ball movement they used to get with Rondo’s ballhandling skill with quick, crisp passing. That created open shots up and down the lineup, especially in the second quarter, when the Celtics made their first 14 shots and were 16-for-20 overall. For the game, Boston shot 53.4 percent, and while no player took more than 11 shots, six players finished in double figures.

“It has to come from a number of people,” Pierce said. “You have a lot of other people who have opportunities to step up. From the way we move the ball, the way we spread the court, that’s the way we need to play. That’s the way we need to play. I mean, nobody had the ball for more than a couple seconds. … Move the ball. That’s pretty much what we did all season, we looked up the court, we were able to run and it was fun out there.”

The Celtics have lost the league-high 11.1 assists per game Rondo provides, and they’re probably not going to have very many guys racking up double-digit assists over the rest of the season. But to replace what Rondo does, they need to get good passing from all corners of the roster—not just backup guards Jason Terry and Leandro Barbosa, the closest thing the Celtics have to point guards on the roster, but from the big men, too. It was center Kevin Garnett who led the team in assists, with five.

Boston’s approach now is to structure the offense the way it is usually set up for the second unit, which doesn’t have a point guard—spread the floor and move the ball from inside out. The sets are entirely different for the starters, because of Rondo’s playmaking skill, but now the whole attack has been altered. It worked against Sacramento. But it won’t be able to keep winning with it.

“It’s a lot easier said than done, especially when you’re used to playing one way all season,” Pierce said. “But I thought we had a good, good shootaround today, a good practice yesterday, kind of went over what we needed to do. You know, everyone will have expanded roles, maybe a little more ballhandling out of Courtney Lee, a little more ball handling out of myself, more out of Avery Bradley, Jason Terry. A lot of guys got a little bit more responsibilities now, and you know, we have to be responsible with it.”

Two games in, and the Celtics are 2-0. They’re a long way from showing that they have staying power in the East race without Rondo, but they’ve shown how their style will change—and they’ve shown that there’s at least a chance it won’t work out so bad.